The office at a Maddox presentation centre in Vancouver. Two employees of real estate marketing firm MAC Marketing Solutions posed as Chinese buyers for TV crews at the Cressey Developments building.

Photographed by:GLENN BAGLO, Vancouver Sun

A senior manager at MAC Marketing has resigned after two employees posed as potential real estate buyers from China in two TV news stories.

“Since last week, I have been able to interview staff and better understand the incident occurring February 9,” MAC Marketing Solutions president Cameron McNeill said in an email. “I have instigated appropriate actions and furthermore, I have accepted the resignation of a MAC senior manager. I want to honour everyone’s privacy, so I will not comment on the specifics.”

Last week, McNeill apologized for misleading the public after CTV and CBC carried news stories about the Chinese New Year being a popular time to buy Vancouver real estate. In the stories, Chris Lee and her sister Amanda posed as two women shopping for a new apartment at Cressey Developments Maddox development in downtown Vancouver while in town for the Chinese New Year.

The women were both MAC employees and they are not sisters.

The Real Estate Association of B.C., the governing body for realtors, is investigating the matter.

McNeill said MAC will use this “unfortunate occurrence” as a learning experience.

“At MAC, we have a code of conduct and ethical guidelines that are well-established,” McNeill said. “We expect everyone at MAC to uphold the highest standards of professionalism and integrity at all times. I will work hard to ensure that this code is strongly reinforced to ensure an incident like this never happens again.”